


The Two of Us Went Up in Smoke

by OverlyCheerfulRat



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Caretaking, Disabled Character, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gen, Ghosts, Incontinence, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22766818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverlyCheerfulRat/pseuds/OverlyCheerfulRat
Summary: After a car crash kills his sister and her older son, Thorin becomes the guardian of his mentally disabled nephew Kili. They move to an old house in the country, where Kili befriends a ghost.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yo so i might actually fucking finish this one, i'm already started on chapter two. no promises.

Moving into a new house was always stressful, more so when it was happening on the tails of your sister and nephew's deaths. Thorin Oakenshield, now the sole guardian of his last remaining family member, had decided that Kili would be happier away from memories of his mother and elder brother.

Additionally, he wasn't sure how to care for the boy in the suburbs. Kili had been brain damaged due to oxygen deprivation at birth, and while Dis had been an excellent caretaker, Thorin was always slightly paranoid. He'd been urging Dis to move to the country ever since the incident with Tauriel two years back. Kili's newly developed motorphobia only made it more logical, so three and a half months after the funerals, Thorin and his nephew moved into an old cottage. 

"Uncle Thorin, I found a secret room," Kili announced one morning, after unceremoniously tackling a sleeping Thorin out of bed. "What the fu- I mean, good morning," Thorin grunted. "Did you have an accident?" Kili turned red and immediately changed the subject. "There's a secret- a secret room," he repeated. Thorin sighed and gently pushed his nephew off his stomach, getting to his feet. "There aren't any secret rooms, Kili, the real estate agent would've let me know. Come on, I need to change you." He said the latter sentence as carefully as possible, knowing his nephew's incontinence was a sore subject.

Kili grudgingly got to his feet and took his uncle's hand, allowing himself to be led into the bathroom. "But there is, though. I found it this morning, I can show you!" Thorin fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Can it wait until we have breakfast?" "Yeah." "Alright, then." After changing Kili and helping him dress, Thorin demonstrated his truly brilliant cookery skills by forgetting to pour milk in the cereal. By the time they finished eating, Kili was practically vibrating with excitement. "It's in the attic!"

Thorin followed his nephew, watching carefully to make sure he didn't trip. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't a tiny door in the corner. It had clearly been covered with wallpaper previously, all of which was now ripped away and lying on the floor. "Did you do that?" Kili looked away sheepishly. "I saw the door outline," he said defensively. Thorin sighed, grateful they weren't renting the place. He knelt down and examined the door, noting that there was no knob, only a hole one could hook a finger through to swing it open.

He did so, and peered inside only to find a small, empty nook under the rafters. "I already saw in there," Kili piped up from behind him. "Can it be my new bedroom?" Thorin chuckled. "It's a little cramped for that, and besides, you already picked your bedroom. But it could be a nice fort if we brought up some pillows and blankets." They did just that later in the day, and Thorin thought nothing of it until the weekend, when Kili once again woke him up via tackle. Used to it by now, Thorin just rolled over, tickling his nephew's stomach. "Maybe I'll tackle you one of these days, huh? How would you like that?"

"I made a friend," Kili told him happily, and Thorin froze up. As far as he knew, Kili hadn't left the property by himself all week. "What's their name?" "Legolas," Kili responded brightly. "He used to live here until he died." This statement was so far from what Thorin had been expecting that he just gaped silently for a moment. Taking this as a sign to continue, Kili happily said, "He's tall and blond. And he used to play in the little attic room we made a fort!" By the time he finished, Thorin had decided that Kili simply had an imaginary friend. "Is that right?" His nephew nodded and proceeded to spend the rest of the morning telling Thorin all about this new friend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-con trigger warning for this chapter

Thorin wasn't sure if Kili'd had imaginary friends before, but he was a little glad it wasn't a real person. His last friendship hadn't ended well. Thorin remembered how he'd never trusted the neighbor girl, Tauriel, but Dis seemed to love her as much as Kili did. At least, she loved her until the day she walked in on a very intimate moment that Kili clearly didn't have the capacity to consent to. 

If anyone had asked Kili about it, he wouldn't know what to say. Tauriel was nice, and pretty, and she had asked if he wanted to play a new game. "I have to take you clothes off first," she'd ordered. "I'll take mine off, too, okay?" Once they were both in their underwear, her hands explored between his legs, sliding beneath the waistband of his diaper. "You can touch me, too," she murmured in his ear, but when he patted her wrist she giggled and said he was doing it wrong. Before she could go any further, the front door opened downstairs and Tauriel jumped away.

Kili didn't understand why she made him get dressed again so quickly, or why she made him promise not to tell anyone. The next time they played the game, she stripped both of them completely and laid Kili on his back, straddling his hips. Unbeknownst to either of them, Fili had been home at the time and heard Tauriel's moaning coupled with Kili's frightened questions as to what she was doing. He ran into the room, already screaming at Tauriel, who practically threw herself off a now-crying Kili and dressed hurriedly.

They didn't end up pressing charges, but Dis told Tauriel they would if she ever came near her son again. Kili, for his part, still didn't know what had happened. Thorin never asked him about it. In the new house, there wasn't anyone around who could hurt him, but neither was there anyone he could talk to aside from his uncle. If he felt the need to have an imaginary friend, that was fine by Thorin. He found it a little strange that said friend was a ghost, but figured it was just a creative choice.

At least, until he met their nearest neighbor, a very short man about a mile down the road. He'd knocked on their door to introduce himself as Bilbo Baggins and offer them a pie, while Thorin marveled at how absolutely tiny he was and didn't really listen to what he was saying. "...so glad someone finally moved in after the debacle last time," Bilbo was rambling, and Thorin blinked back to attention. "Debacle?" 

"Oh, did the real estate agent not tell you? The last owner was a young couple who thought the place was haunted," Bilbo laughed. "Nonsense, of course. I'm sure they just heard some strange noises and did too much research on the history of the house." When he saw Thorin's stricken expression, he sighed. "The agent really must not have told you anything." He might have given Thorin more information, had Kili not run downstairs to see who was at the door. "You're so little!" Bilbo gave him a strained smile at that, reluctantly allowing Kili to gasp over his tiny hands and ears.

"That's enough, now, Kili. Don't bother the poor man," Thorin chided, pulling his nephew away. "You're welcome to come over any time," Bilbo told them before heading back to his own house. That night, after Kili was asleep, Thorin decided to see what "history" Bilbo had been talking about. In the sickly blue glow of his laptop screen, he grew paler with every word he read.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short chapter here. currently trying to decide if i want thorin to get with bilbo or thranduil. share your thoughts blease

According to the records he managed to dig up, the house had been built in 1768, which he'd already known. What the real estate agent failed to mention was that there used to be a stable on the property, which burned down in 1879 with two people inside. They both died. Thorin managed to find two different sources giving two different accounts, one of which painted a much darker picture.

What both sources agreed on was this: at the time of the fire, the property was owned by Thranduil Greenleaf, whose wife had died giving birth to their only child in 1865, a boy named Legolas. At age three, Legolas contracted polio and survived, but was left paraplegic. He apparently spent a lot of time in the stable, in which there hadn't been horses for almost fifty years at that point. In the October of 1879, the stable caught fire with Legolas inside, and Thranduil ran in to save him. When the flames grew too fast, both were trapped in the blaze. 

The accounts differed on one key point, and that was the cause of the fire. One said it was an accident, probably caused by someone knocking over a lamp, and the other said it was arson. According to the latter source, Thranduil was rumored to have affairs with other men, and when nothing could be proven, the more religious townsfolk took matters into their own hands. 

Whatever the cause, Thorin was most disturbed by Kili's imaginary friend sharing a name with a dead boy. As far as he knew, there was nowhere his nephew could have learned the house's history.


End file.
